


To Whom It May Concern

by levitatethis



Category: Lost
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-11
Updated: 2008-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sayid tries to make sense of his life</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Whom It May Concern

Sayid writes letters in his mind. They are addressed to no one in particular, flowing freewheeling to the universe, to Allah, to anything that will render sense from the chaotic. He wishes he could use Nadia’s murder as the touch point for the cerebral expeditions but the truth is they started before that, when the falsity of a normal existence seemed possible.

_To whom it may concern,   
If you are reading this it means _

He was not always so fatalistic. Even when life kept dealing him undesirable hands, he refused to succumb and fall to his knees before human demigods and irrational manifestations. But life has a way of cutting one down to size. Still he moved with purpose, free will in a destined course.

_To whom it concerns,   
I did not ask for this. I have paid my price but still I   
_  
Life is divided into three parts. Pre-island, post-island, and the never ending purgatory that demands retribution at the cost of his mind and what is left of his soul. He gazes, unfocused, outside of train and taxi windows and absentmindedly fingers the gun that rests in the holster under his jacket. Cursive letters ink across his field of vision in an SOS.

_I have done what was asked of me. Forgive me my actions, they were not my choice.   
_  
His home is perpetual motion. There is no set place that houses him and the ghosts of his past. They remain shackled to his steps, fused to his shadow, and invasive in the dark corners of his mind. Lying on his back in the bed of another nameless hotel room, Sayid stares listlessly at the ceiling. Living someone else’s life, he is a character in a parallel universe that is close enough to his own that he feels a schism split in the fabric of an all too precarious reality.

~~_To whom   
I existed once   
_~~  
It is too painful to think about Nadia. Their end was unforgivable. He fights to stay afloat and to do so he must reach back further, before rescue and reunion. He tethers himself to when possibility flowed through his veins and fed his appetite to keep seeking, to not give up or in. In the midst of so many combinations there is only one that clicks the neurons in his brain into play. Why Sayid thinks of him he cannot say--not at first.

_Desmond,   
It has all been taken away. There is no truth, only poisonous lies. But no one else shall suffer for my   
_  
There was so much conflict. Potentially insurmountable obstacles dared him to throw down for a challenge in battles that were tangible to touch and metaphorical to hypothesize. He was a cog in an unyielding machine going through the motions but making questionable progress. Sayid had scared himself—the fall before the rise before the fall.

~~ _Hello   
_ ~~ _Desmond,   
I know what must be done. You understood that once. ~~You must ~~  
Believe me when I say this is the only way. ~~Please ~~  
Do not think too badly of me. _

Sayid sits in restaurants, near the back exit, and faces the other diners. He makes careful notes regarding body positions, mood, and volume of conversation. He watches for wayward glances, hesitations and lost thoughts. But in the time between the arrival of the bill and its pick up, he mines invisible footprints.

With his left hand palm down on the tabletop he traces his right index finger in a circular motion near the bottom of his half-filled glass. His hair falls over his shoulder and cuts down his peripheral vision. Closing his eyes he sees the familiar face and scribbles words overtop.

~~_Dear   
_~~_Dear Desmond,   
If only one of us could have the life most deserved, I am comforted to know that you   
I take some comfort in knowing you are all right.   
_  
To stay invisible one must remain above the fray. Head held high, a steady stride, and smooth movements run a tactical counter that works surprisingly well. While others run zigzag haywire and notice striking disarray, they fail to see the anomaly of the bold extreme presented in a face of cool ease. It is all too convincing, such that no one sees the broken plea behind calculating eyes and a distant countenance.

Although Desmond never questioned Sayid, the concern was still flickering behind watchful eyes. Sayid appreciated the kept tongue at the time. In retrospect he wishes that real words had filled the space between them, binding them through an indisputable understanding of love lost but a heartbeat away over the fine line tip of the horizon.

_Do you ever feel as if you never truly left the island? Maybe I did die there. There is inevitability and then there is   
_  
Sayid stands with his head bowed beneath the hot spray of the shower. Peeking through his slightly parted eyelids he watches the water hit his skin and circle the drain near his feet. He braces his hands against the wall in front of him and is pushed down, but a few millimetres, by the dense weight of water in his hair, flat and thermal against his neck, soothing and restrictive, a blanket and a noose.

He desperately craves the perspective he feels he is losing with each order that is carried out. He tilts his head back, angling his face into the spray. Pushing back off the wall, Sayid pauses and listens for the sound of his latest mark moving in the bedroom.

Connections, honest ones, are rare for him. One is forever gone and the other has come to mean more in its absence. If Sayid had known at the time, if he had understood the significance of what was happening on that freighter and what would come for him, he would have made it count more. Instead it exists as a collection of memories, at times altered and tweaked as Sayid re-examines and redefines details that were at one time inconsequential.

_My friend Desmond,   
This time around going back is going forward. It is a conundrum you know all too well. I came later into this sordid game and have had to learn the rules on different terms. But they are not definitive.   
_  
Sayid is a hired assassin on an existentialist’s quest. Right and wrong are subjective concepts and though resistance is real he still follows the flow, in preparation for strength of mind, towards the apex. It is a set course he did not see—but Desmond knew it, he lived the confusion of fractured timelines that leapfrogged him back and forth, all the while bringing him to the nucleus of his own existence.

Sayid feels as if he is the flipside. There is no eternal hope at his core. It has been swiftly exorcised. All that remains are false promises.

_Desmond,   
It is bittersweet, the life that has found me. I see the self-serving reasons behind manipulative eyes and am humbled and awakened. There is more blood on my hands than those who could spill it. The pendulum has swung so far off course that only retribution can avenge it.   
_  
He thinks about the inner strength that carried Desmond through the years. At times it seems incomprehensible that a man could be so removed to from his own reality and yet be bound to it at the same time. He speaks to Desmond in a coded tongue that throbs his brain and wonders if it is possible for thoughts to travel trans-Atlantic. It gives him pause to believe that maybe Desmond has heard him through the static reception of space and time, and even without a reply that can be authenticated, Sayid knows he is in the presence of a confidante.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Sayid clasps his hands between parted legs. With his head hung low he is the image of pious contemplation. Outside the hotel window the distant sounds of city life penetrate the glass. He closes his eyes and—

Quickly he is on his feet, walking across the room to the desk against he far wall. Pulling out the chair he sits down and rests his hands against he flat surface. After a minute he pulls the notepad that is in the left corner and picks up a pen emblazoned with the hotel’s name across the barrel. He presses the inked tip to the start white surface and begins.

_Dear Desmond,   
I hope that life is treating you well. The fortune I thought had smiled upon me did not last long and I find myself now living an existence I would never have asked for. I should like to know that you found everything you were looking for, to know that the indeterminate time and inexplicable circumstances led you where you wanted to be. _

_Whether this letter finds you or not, whether you are happy, know that my thoughts stray to you quite often. Despite the life that I find myself in, you gave me hope when I needed it most. You reminded me that something more, something worthy, did exist and was waiting   
_  
The jolting ring of the cellphone causes Sayid to scratch his pen across the paper, leaving an ugly harsh blue line struck upwards on the letter. His reality crushes a restrictive weight down on his limbs and, dropping the pen he pushes his chair back and pulls the phone out of his jacket pocket.

He knows who the caller is before he glances at the screen, still the name creeps a chill up his body and he closes his eyes in an attempt at calming meditation, willing himself to be anywhere else. But there is no escape.

Opening his eyes he puts the phone back in his pocket then picks up the half written letter. Reading it he tastes the tainted words on the tip of his tongue. He stands and rips up the letter, vertical strips first, then squares, then misshaped and random. He sighs and tosses the destroyed confession into the garbage bin next to the desk. Walking around the bed to the door, he casts a discerning glance across the room and slips his right hand under his jacket to feel for the gun strapped in the holster against the left side of his chest.

Hope is a dangerous thing.   
 


End file.
